RESIDENTS of Eagle County, beware: There’s a large-nosed, dark-haired, pierced-eared, squinty-eyed Jew on the loose.
If that potent blend of stereotypes offends you, think of how the Jewish residents of Vail felt last week to read that very description in their daily newspaper, reporting on an at-large suspect who allegedly burglarized several homes in nearby Edwards the weekend before.
Based on a police report from the Eagle County Sheriff’s Department, which in turn was based on an eyewitness report, the description made its way into a press release and somehow found its way, unedited, into the pages of the Vail Daily newspaper.
Which, to add yet another surreal turn, happens to be edited by a Jew.
The resulting storm of protest from angry area Jews lit up the pages of the aforementioned newspaper for several days last week, and generated considerable coffee shop discussion in this bucolic county, much better known for its panoramic views and ski slopes than its allegedly Jewish burglars lurking in the shadows.
The imbroglio was generated over the weekend of June 20-21, when several homes in the town of Edwards were burglarized. According to the police report and the Vail Daily, one of the residents got a good look at the suspect and gave this description:
“A male of Jewish or Eastern European descent, approximately 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds with dark hair, a large nose, pierced ears, a narrow face and eyes that were close together. He was wearing a dark-colored baseball cap.”
The suspect was seen leaving the scene in a “beat up” Chevrolet Cavalier with Nebraska plates, driven by a young female “with fair skin and long, wavy blond hair.” Read the related blog entry, "Link to...Colorado" on Rocky Mountain Jew
When the Daily, using exactly those words, published its account of the burglaries, the newspaper’s mailbox quickly filled up with letters from angry Jewish readers.
Among their comments:
— “Someone quotes you an ignorant, anti-Semitic slur, and you publish it without a single editor questioning whether you should?”
— “I happen to be Jewish and did not know there were any of us in Nebraska. And certainly if there are any, none drive a ‘blue beat-up Chevrolet Cavalier.’”
— “It sounds a lot like one of Joseph Goebbels’ finer works of propaganda.”
— “Did the Vail Daily bother to have an editor review this story? I certainly hope not, as that reporter should be either summarily fired or immediately smote, to use the biblical terminology.”
— “I always thought Jews ran the worldwide economy and controlled the media. What is one of their ranks doing burglarizing homes in Edwards?”
Using a more measured and less satirical tone, ADL area director Bruce DeBoskey reminded readers of the Vail Daily of the historical antecedents of such stereotypical language.
“This particular stereotype,” he wrote, “has had tragic and genocidal consequences for Jews.”
ON June 25, the day after the Daily ran its initial coverage, editor Matt Zalaznick wrote an extensive apology and explanation on the paper’s op-ed page, in which he acknowledged that the stereotypes — including one in particular — were offensive to Jews.
“The ‘large nose,’ unfortunately, is an old and reviled Jewish stereotype that readers felt we have perpetuated,” Zalaznick wrote.
“While some found the article misguided and insensitive, others found it downright appalling and anti-Semitic, comparing it to something the Nazis might have produced. And we are sorry for opening old and deep wounds.
“As a Jewish American and one of the editors of the statement, I apologize to those who were offended.”
The editor continued with a discussion of whether Jewishness should be considered strictly a religion or also as a form of ethnic identity, and whether ethnic terms should be utilized in press coverage of police descriptions. He asked readers to consider whether there is such a thing as a “Jewish look.”
“We felt there was a difference between saying that all Jewish people look a certain way and that one alleged burglar in Edwards, Colorado, looked Jewish,” Zalaznick wrote. “The former is truly reprehensible. The latter is still offensive but is a result of sloppy editing rather than any individual or institutional bigotry.”
Repeating the paper’s apology, the editor promised to be “more sensitive when it comes to including ethnicity in descriptions of people, whether they are criminal suspects or otherwise.”
RABBI Dovid Mintz, who leads Chabad of Vail, said the published description was the first instance of insensitivity toward Jews that he has experienced in his three years in the mountain community.
While he doesn’t think that such insensitivity — or anti-Semitism, for that matter — are characteristic of Eagle County, “the officer who wrote this should certainly take a course regarding sensitivity,” he said of the initial police report.
Rabbi Mintz told the IJN this week that he was “outraged” at the description and encouraged area Jews to voice their opinions to the newspaper.
“It was very upsetting and the community truly did let their feelings be known,” the rabbi said.
“A great percentage of the community was outraged by this and we were very touched by the support of all the people in the community, from all walks of life.
“It was not just the Jewish community that was upset. I heard from many friends who emailed or called, and just people on the street.”
Rabbi Debrah Rappaport, who leads the B’nai Vail congregation, echoed that thought.
“I am so moved at how the Jewish people spoke out in the paper,” she told the IJN this week. “They were incredibly articulate and it was moving to see so many Jews and non-Jews speaking out against such a racial slur.”
MEANWHILE, Sheriff Joe Hoy, one of whose deputies generated this alpine tempest, seemed a bit puzzled at all of the hubbub.
“I don’t say they’re overreacting,” he said of the public reaction to the stereotypes, “but I think some people took too much offense to it.”
His department’s press release based its physical description of the suspect on what a deputy was told by the eyewitness, Hoy told the IJN this week.
“The way I understand it, that’s the victim’s statement,” he said, adding that his department ordinarily conveys a victim’s description in press releases where a suspect’s description is deemed necessary.
The sheriff said that as of early this week he had received no calls or letters of protest from area Jews in response to the description.
Hoy said he feels that the Vail Daily must answer for itself for repeating the description as it did. “I think most of the folks were upset with the Vail Daily for putting it that way,” he said. “That’s the paper’s issue.”
When pressed on whether his department should have issued the description as it did, Hoy hinted that maybe it wasn’t the best idea.
“I think we missed it down here at the office, too,” he said of the stereotype-laden description.
Hoy agreed that in any case such a description would be of little practical use to law enforcement. Unless a suspect was wearing some sort of obviously Jewish clothing, the description of a “Jewish or Eastern European” looking individual would be of no more value in helping track a suspect than calling him “a red-haired Irishman.”
“I think a lot of the officers out here wouldn’t be able to do much with that,” he said.
As of Monday afternoon, the sheriff said there had been no arrests in the case of the Edwards burglaries.
